Photo by Kyoko Hamada
Blam. Voices, bad lock,
a red sun going down.
The Fourth is a death
day again, anniversary
of a thing better felt
than sung most years.
Applause, like simple
insistence, might come
rigged, but not when
chosen as the word
to celebrate a birth
or made part of a skill
& then to pass it along
is a pleasure. His poems
being measured, sure,
enough to fend
for that mind’s need
to make shapes on
more than one level
and so, anyone’s.
I like their company
thinking about these
guys today. And to hear
lights exploding to make
plain a little age, a little
more at any rate
could almost fool me
as divine. Passing along
forms is surviving. Bodies
don’t need to be present.
a red sun going down.
The Fourth is a death
day again, anniversary
of a thing better felt
than sung most years.
Applause, like simple
insistence, might come
rigged, but not when
chosen as the word
to celebrate a birth
or made part of a skill
& then to pass it along
is a pleasure. His poems
being measured, sure,
enough to fend
for that mind’s need
to make shapes on
more than one level
and so, anyone’s.
I like their company
thinking about these
guys today. And to hear
lights exploding to make
plain a little age, a little
more at any rate
could almost fool me
as divine. Passing along
forms is surviving. Bodies
don’t need to be present.
– Anselm Berrigan, 7/4/2005
